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Achaemenes

Son of Darius, satrap of Egypt and Xerxes' admiral, died about 460 BCE

Achaemenes was a son of Darius and Atossa and so a full brother of Xerxes. After an Egyptian revolt was put down early in Xerxes' reign, he governed Egypt and led its squadron in the invasion of Greece in 480. He was later killed in Egypt fighting the rebel Inaros.

In the game: The game's chronicle presents him as Xerxes' full brother, satrap of Egypt and admiral of its two hundred ships, who warned against splitting the fleet. This matches Herodotus, the main source.

A royal brother in Egypt

Ancient account

Herodotus calls Achaemenes Xerxes' brother on both his father's and his mother's side, which makes him a son of Darius by Atossa, daughter of Cyrus. Egypt rebelled at the end of Darius's reign. Herodotus says Xerxes reconquered it in the second year after his father's death and handed it to Achaemenes to govern.

Herodotus 7.1; 7.7; 7.97

Admiral of the Egyptian ships

Ancient account

Herodotus counts two hundred Egyptian ships in Xerxes' fleet and names Achaemenes as their commander. He was one of four Persian admirals, alongside his half-brother Ariabignes. Herodotus says the Egyptians fought best on the King's side at Artemisium, taking five Greek ships together with their crews.

Herodotus 7.89; 7.97; 8.17

Against dividing the fleet

Ancient account

After Thermopylae the exiled Spartan king Demaratus advised sending part of the fleet to raid Cythera off the Laconian coast. In Herodotus's account Achaemenes argued that the storms had already cost many ships and that the fleet should stay together. He also hinted that Demaratus wished the King ill. Xerxes took his advice on strategy but rebuked him for slandering a guest-friend.

Herodotus 7.235-237

Death in the revolt of Inaros

Disputed

Herodotus says Inaros the Libyan killed Achaemenes, and he mentions the skulls of the Persians who fell with him at Papremis. Ctesias calls the commander Achaemenides and makes him a brother of Artaxerxes I. Diodorus names him Achaemenes, the King's uncle. Thucydides and Diodorus describe Athenian help for the rebels, and the date of about 460 or 459 is still argued.

Herodotus 3.12; 7.7; Ctesias, Persica; Diodorus 11.74; Thucydides 1.104

A Greek-centred picture

Disputed

Almost everything known about Achaemenes comes from Greek writers, who saw him through the war with Greece. His rule of Egypt lasted roughly two decades but left little trace in surviving documents of the time. Modern accounts of how he governed therefore rest largely on inference from the wider Achaemenid administration of Egypt.

P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002